Justin Sullivan and Jacob Andrzejczak/Getty Images/ Richard Lautens/Toronto Star
Just as 1967 is remembered as the summer of love, 2010 will be the summer of sexual harassment—or at least of sexual harassment claims. The latest in an ongoing parade of allegations led to the resignation of Hewlitt-Packard CEO Mark Hurd earlier this month, after a contract employee who planned VIP events said he’d sexually harassed her.
HP investigated Jodie Fisher’s charge and concluded it “was not supported by the facts.” But Hurd was out in any case, on grounds that he had violated the company’s expense account policies and “misused” corporate assets. The probe also found that he had not reported his “close personal relationship” with Fisher, a former soft-core porn actress, which consituted a conflict of interest.
Of all the accusations lobbed in the workplace these days, sexual harassment remains the most fraught—and attention-grabbing. It also appears to be pandemic. Actor Casey Affleck is fighting accusations from two women who worked for him on a film he directed. In July, Steve McPherson, an executive with ABC, resigned amid an ongoing investigation.
Canada, too, has contributed to the pile-up. In June, a media firestorm erupted over news that the sudden resignation of David Davidar, the high-profile president of Penguin Canada, was linked to sexual harassment claims made public when Lisa Rundle, a former executive, filed a wrongful dismissal lawsuit against the company. Later that month, Stacey Walker, a black 27-year-old medical imaging technologist, came forward about being fired from Toronto Western Hospital after she complained she was sexually harassed and subjected to racial taunts. The capper: a $2.3-million defamation case launched by David Cowling, a senior partner at Toronto law firm Mathews, Dinsdale & Clarke, known for advising employers on workplace issues, including sexual harassment. Two junior female lawyers who have since left the firm reported Cowling engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct at a nightclub after a company function last year.
The notion that we’re returning to the 1960s of Mad Men—even as we continue to be amused by the shenanigans of those anachronistic ad executives on TV—was reinforced by the lurid details that emerged from the recent class-action discrimination suit against the U.S. subsidiary of Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis. A jury found the company guilty of systemic gender discrimination in pay, promotions and pregnancy policy in connection to more than 5,600 women workers. Female employees testified one manager invited female colleagues to sit on his lap and showed them pornographic pictures; sales reps alleged they were expected to put up with sexual propositions from doctors. Pregnant women were routinely demoted and fired. The company was ordered to pay punitive damages of US$250 million.
So what, exactly, is going on here? It’s now four decades since “sexual harassment” entered the lexicon and companies began instituting policies and confidential tip lines to protect employees from creepy bosses abusing their power—and themselves from litigation and bad publicity. Yet the current spate of accusations and lawsuits reflects a new boiling point. The 1960s identified the issue, and the late 1980s and 1990s ushered in an era of awareness and outrage sparked by high-profile class-action lawsuits against Wall Street firms that revealed that female employees were subjected to chauvinistic behaviour and overtly shut out of the boys’ club. These days, when you’d think we should be beyond it, we’re in sexual harassment’s third wave, an era cloaked in the veneer of enlightenment and tinged with shades of grey.
And, for all of the studies and policies, very little has changed on the ground in 20 years, including the fact women remain the targets, says Susan Vella, a lawyer at Rochon Genova in Toronto. “We all know it’s a bad thing,” she says. But the underlying power dynamic remains the same: “It’s as hard for the woman to make the decision to call her boss out on the carpet as it was 10, 15 years ago,” Vella says. “You fear the same things you feared before: am I going to be believed? If I’m believed, am I going to be any better off? Am I going to have a job? If I’m not believed, I’m for sure not going to have a job. Who’s going to hire me? I’m going to have a reputation as a troublemaker.”
What is obviously different is the institutionalization of sexual harassment policies, which like most HR initiatives, protects the company first. But raised consciousness about this issue is itself used as a shield by those doing the harassing, notes Susan Douglas, author of Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message that Feminism’s Work Is Done. “A woman who complains is told, ‘Come on, you’re reading this wrong. Of course, I know sexual harassment is bad. I couldn’t possibly be doing anything that offensive by telling you how great your butt looks in that skirt.’ ” It’s the reality of a “post-sexist” society which sanctions boorish behaviour and then expects it to be understood as a joke, Douglas points out. And that can make it even more difficult to speak up.
The realities of the modern workplace complicate the matter. Lines can blur—and excuses can be made—in offices that are more casual than ever before, from dress codes to collegial relationships. Social and professional lives have become so entwined that people talk of their “office husband” or “office wife.” Douglas points to the new dilemma of an employee getting sent a sexually explicit YouTube video by a superior: “Usually they’re funny, too, so you’re supposed to be getting the joke and not pointing out that this contributes to an uncomfortable workplace environment.”
The climate, arguably, can be more insidious than the overt leering come-ons in the steno pool 40 years ago, because it comes with an additional barb: “Oh, don’t take yourself so seriously.” That’s a pattern in several of the recent cases: the woman complained—often about egregious behaviour—only to be told by her superiors or HR that the man was just being friendly, or complimentary, or funny.
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